"How did it come to this, America? How did your leaders allow the most powerful nation on Earth… to die? The answer is really quite simple. Incompetence. Incompetence at the highest echelons of power. We put our trust, our faith, in halfwits. Our intrepid leaders had everything they wanted. Power. Wealth. Prestige. And it made them lazy, America. Oh yes. And laziness breeds stupidity." - John Henry Eden, artificial intelligence developed by the enclave, fictional character in fallout 3

much truth in this quote, not only towards the leaders though, but a unfortunately large part of the civil population too

We didn't just put our faith in halfwits, have you seen the general population lately? We are a country of halfwits. It doesn't surprise me that the terrorists in 9/11 got through so easily, because despite there being all sorts of terrorism issues around the world at the time, and repeated warnings that it was coming, we didn't believe it would happen. It was like terrorists were unicorns to the American people.